


The Price of Fame

by emothy



Series: Club Purgatory [9]
Category: Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-16
Updated: 2009-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emothy/pseuds/emothy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fuji learns something about Yukimura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price of Fame

-

The fifth time Fuji visits the club, the decor is much improved, and Yukimura's office and private rooms feel like they have been lived in for years. He would comment on it, but he doesn't visit for chit-chat and they both know it.

It happens to be the first time he comes on a day off from work, and of the bags he brings with him neither is his usual, official briefcase. He has a rucksack and a portfolio carrier that is half as tall as he is. Yukimura doesn't inquire about them, and doesn't seem bothered when Fuji pulls out a sketchpad and begins to pencil down parts of the room, laying on the bed belly-down and shoving off the sheets when they get in his way.

The phone next door in the office rings, and Yukimura grunts but goes to get it anyway. When he comes back and stands just inside the doorway holding the phone gracefully to his ear and listening with a look of pure impatience on his face, Fuji can't help but switch his focus and begin to sketch him instead. He spends an unnecessary amount of time on the shape of Yukimura's buttocks.

Yukimura feels the sharp, focused gaze upon him and turns to see what Fuji is doing, smiling as he peers onto the bed.

"I think you're being stingy in a particular area," he comments, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. "Yes, yes. If that's what needs doing then get on with it. I'm giving you my blessing _now_!" He hangs up and turns the phone off.

"Your thigh was blocking my view," Fuji replies around the pencil in his mouth. "Of course now that you've moved if you like I can attempt a full-frontal portrait."

"I haven't the patience," Yukimura replies, settling himself on Fuji's legs and running his hands idly over his buttocks. Fuji shrugs and turns back the page to the sketch of Yukimura's room.

"That's nice," he says, indicating a painting on the wall with the end of his pencil. Yukimura glances up.

"Yeah," he says, and though his voice is quite breezy, his fingers on the right side are digging in a little bit harder than before. Luckily not hard enough for Fuji to wince or shift from the pain, or he would have to admit he had noticed. "It was a gift."

It sounds like Yukimura can't decide whether that was a good thing or not, and Fuji tactfully and swiftly changes the subject. He pulls one leg out from under Yukimura and turns onto his back, and his sketch gets quite crumpled behind his head before the pad falls off the end of the bed entirely.

-

"I have to go and speak to the bar staff," Yukimura says as he pulls on his socks and his pants, afterwards. Fuji nods and makes no move to get up off the bed.

"I'll be down in a while," he says, and Yukimura nods slowly, not at all pleased with the arrangement, but accepts it. "If you were quite happy to fuck me in the middle of a run-down club the day we first met, then you really shouldn't have a problem leaving me in your room for all of fifteen minutes." Yukimura didn't need to be told; he was thinking very much along the same lines.

"I'll let you check my pockets when I come downstairs," Fuji grins. He glances around. "Now what do you have that's very expensive that I can fit in my highly useful back passage?"

Yukimura rolls his eyes and leaves the room, the set of his shoulders indicating that he still isn't happy about the situation, but is too polite, and rushed, to say so. Fuji figures he probably has security cameras, or will dust for fingerprints afterwards to see what has been touched. He glances around the ceiling for a moment, just in case the camera theory is right.

"I'd really like copies of anything with me in it," he smiles sweetly to the ceiling. He is only curious about the painting, and figures that whatever else he might find out will be worth whatever punishment Yukimura bestows upon him for prying, once he knows what Fuji knows.

Fuji lifts the picture down from its hook and carefully pops it out of its frame. The front is signed obscurely, but enough for him to wonder if it might just be an original. If it were it would certainly explain a reluctance to be rid of it even if you disliked it. The pleasure of owning something priceless would outweight the profit that came from selling it on.

When he lifts the painting carefully to lay it back in the frame, a folded piece of paper falls out of the back and onto the floor. Fuji hasn't got much time to waste now, and reads it hastily before tucking it back into the frame and hanging the picture back up. He dresses in record time and drops his bags on a chair before walking over to Yukimura and the bar staff to say hello and help himself to a drink.

-

"I'm sorry," Yukimura says on Fuji's sixth visit, but he doesn't really mean it, and never once has.

"Buy me a drink and we'll call it quits," Fuji replies easily, figuring that if Yukimura knew he had inspected the painting he certainly wouldn't be apolgizing now. Yukimura's insincerity isn't so bad when it is considered that he isn't the one who needs to be aplogizing anyway, since his lack of trust was justified.

They sit at the very end of the bar and Yukimura nods and is immediately delivered two glasses of wine. They come on a tray with a small blue box between them.

"What's this?" Fuji asks, and Yukimura smiles. Nothing is ever anything less than perfectly planned with him, never fumbled or awkward. Fuji picks up the box and inspects it. "A little early to be proposing marriage..."

"Oh, marriage would ruin our relationship," Yukimura replies, taking a sip of his wine. "Open it."

Fuji cracks open the box and finds a ring sitting inside, sure enough. But it's a far cry from an engagement ring, being that it is huge and gaudy in just the kind of way he likes, the gem a little too bright blue to do do anything but dazzle the eyes. It is the kind of thing that is so gaudy it is probably very valuable. Utterly Fuji's taste.

"You like it?" Yukimura asks, and Fuji smiles down into it, but can't help thinking of the very short note on yellowing paper hidden behind a rare painting.

** _NOTHING I GAVE YOU WAS FOR FREE._ **

"It's beautiful," Fuji says, and instead of trying it on, tucks it away very carefully into his pocket.

-


End file.
